


evaporation (oneshot)

by arbitrage



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:23:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5775004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrage/pseuds/arbitrage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay copes with the loss of his lover, memories dimming like a dying flame. 758 words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	evaporation (oneshot)

Jay is not yet used to rolling over in bed and greeting an expanse of wrinkled sheets. He feels, somewhere deep, poetic, and uncharacteristically emotional, that he will never again find familiarity in the way his mattress sinks in on only one side.

He has never been one to dwell on sentiment, but lately catches himself wishing that he were not the sole owner of the creases in his comforter.

Jay sits up, begins his morning staring at the wall. It’s white. All his walls are bare and white, in a way he’s grown to hate.

Everything in his room is white.

 

* * *

 

 

Upon dragging himself into the bathroom, Jay decides that there is no peace to be found in chasing a ghost. Regardless, it doesn’t stop him from cooking his eggs sunny side-up (the way _he_ liked them), from buying a blended coffee from the cafe across the street ( _he_ never drank any other kind), from dressing like he’s living in a movie filmed before color was invented ( _he_ always claimed it was true fashion).

Old habits die hard, he thinks, and these are the ones Carlos left imprinted on his heart.

Jay buys a dozen red roses from the local florist but gives them to Evie when he runs into her on the street. Carlos never knew what to do with his flowers, especially after they’d wilted. Jay thinks of the way the shorter male would press them between hardcover chemistry textbooks and make decorations. He smiles.

 

* * *

 

 

Jay tries to think of the other man as often as he can, but as of late, his memories have begun to bleed together at an alarmingly fast pace. There is one that never fades, however. and it is the day that Jay woke up to find his freckled lover erased from his life. There was no evidence that he had even existed, no traces of him in their little apartment. One toothbrush, one towel, one pair of shoes at the door.

It’s almost as if Carlos were just a vivid dream. Interestingly enough, Jay only ever sees him in his sleep nowadays. It is always in a crowd, and Carlos never notices him no matter how loud he shouts. It is easier to shadow him down the streets, watch him longingly, and hope that when he wakes up, the weight on his heart will have eased.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes, when he is lonely enough, Jay will visit the apartment complex they used to live in. He will jab in the same password to open the gates (it works every time), and walk around the curb till he’s standing in front of his old apartment. It’s always empty, but he shuts his eyes and tries to recall windchimes, tries to recall Carlos’s chipper little, “Welcome home!”

Once, someone catches him mid-visit-- an old neighbor, a college athlete named Chad. He’d lived next door. Jay remembered the day he brought home a large cage; Carlos had leaned out over the balcony to sneak a peek at the bluebirds flitting about inside it.

Chad comes up to Jay the day he’s standing and staring up at the old place. He recognizes the Arab, but when Jay asks, Chad says he had always assumed he lived on his own.

“But that makes a lot more sense,” he adds. “It explains why all your plants were healthy even though you were gone most of the time.”

“The rent’s gone down considerably,” Chad mentions. “You ever think about coming back?”

Jay declines. It doesn’t really matter where he lives anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Jay sees Carlos one more time before he fades away completely, and it isn’t in a dream. It’s in the city, on a freezing afternoon in the winter, while he crosses the street in a mass of people. The man’s walking in the opposite direction as him, hands shoved in his pockets, bright red beanie shoved over pale blonde waves. His roots are growing in, brown like his eyes.

The hat is what catches his eye-- Carlos isn’t a huge fan of them.

Jay pats his own cold hair, wraps fingers around his dark braid. He’d lost a beanie like that just a week before Carlos left.

They come close enough to touch. Jay reaches out, casually brushes against him. Carlos barely notices, but it’s enough to tell Jay that he’s _real_.

It startles him, but Jay doesn’t have to fight the urge to look back or call out to him. He only keeps walking.

When he gets up the next morning, he cooks his eggs scrambled.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure what this is lmao, just a weird Jaylos oneshot. The theory is that Carlos fell into a coma, and while he was unconscious he met Jay in his dreams and they fell in love. But when he woke up, he disappeared from Jay's world, and left Jay on his own. Also an implication that Jay and Carlos's worlds are parallels whenever Jay spots Carlos again while he's out.


End file.
